Sunday, 29 April 2018

Reading "Mythos : The Greek Myths Retold" By Stephen Fry (2017)

Have read Stephen Fry's (2017) "Mythos" published by Michael Joseph : Penguin Book.
His writing has his voice and although the anthropology is a bit suspect, it is imbued with his characteristic wit, his conjectures on language as he describes the myths he has chosen are fascinating. Such as,

"Our word for "hearth" shares its ancestry with heart, just as the modern greek word for hearth is "kardia". In ancient Greece the wider concept of hearth and home was expressed by "oikos", which lives on for us today in words like "economics" and "ecology". The Latin for hearth is "focus" - which speaks for itself. It is a strange and wonderful thing that out of words for a fire place we have spun "cardiologist", "deep focus" and "eco-warrior" (page 58 : 2017)".

Some of the tales (myths), in terms of entertainment value, are better than others, the cosmology can be a bit dry in the middle but it does convey the logic behind a prescientific cosmology, the tales are saturated with Stephen Fry's commentary, I particularly liked the tale of the bees. Take my opinion as you will.